Dakota Beacon

I had been writing a piece this week about our attempt to interface with Islam. A couple of things distracted me, though, including the contest for the position of Speaker of the House. Strangely, these two topics became intertwined, illuminated by a couple of children's stories, in the event today of the attack on the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. The latter, a despicable act of violence in which the editorial staff of the magazine were shot and killed in a military-style attack, is just what the spokesmen for Islam have promised. In fact, it has come to light that a couple of previous attempts had already been thwarted. This one simply was not thwarted.

There were some features of the attack and its aftermath and the post-mortem of the event which really deserve another look. One was that the attackers spoke “perfect, unaccented French”. This strongly suggests that these Muslims who shouted “Alahu Akbar” and tweeted that they had “killed Charlie Hebdo”, were either second-generation immigrant offspring or Frenchmen who had been successfully recruited to the “cause”. Either supposition leads to the same conclusion – that Islam cannot coexist with or in the West. It must either be expelled from Western nations or it must conquer them. It will not change (its holy book cannot be changed, after all) and if we are to live with it we must become Muslim as well. Are you ready? The editor, M. Charbonnier, stated once that he would rather die on his feet than live on his knees. That is the question not only for Charbonnier, who made the choice, but for all of us.

Rather than re-write an article which I stand behind now that this has happened, and which I feel is exonerated (if that were necessary) by today's events, I think I shall just offer it as written. There is an unbridgeable gap between the practitioners of Islam and those who value the blessings of freedom and are willing to fight for them. Another feature of the event is that the leader of the mosque association has condemned the attack (taqiyya?), as have the U.N. Secretary General, the British Prime Minister, Obama and other world leaders. Obama's stand-in for the moment, Jay Carney, stipulated that although the magazine had the “right” to publish the cartoons which sparked the attack, the judgment to do so was “questionable”. So, there we have it – even when the unusual event of a mosque association distances itself from a terrorist attack (probably using good judgment there – they probably recruited the blokes), our government spokesman must chastise the editors more than the gunmen. Truly, if we published and were thus able to read, only what reflected the cowardice disguised as “good judgment”, we'd all be in burqas.

Another matter is that the first two policemen who arrived at the scene were unarmed. What?!! Why go to the scene of a reported shooting unarmed? There is reason to think that perhaps if everyone in this oft-threatened editorial staff had been armed, not every one of the 12 would have been killed . . . or that even if they were, some of the gunmen might not have escaped. After all they had been threatened before. If everyone in the offices of the magazine had been armed and had trained (since it WAS their lives at stake), there is a good chance that instead of tweeting “we killed Charlie Hebdo”, these creeps would have been bleeding on the floor waiting for the police to cart them away. As it was, they all got away. Good work. (I hope the gun grabbers are happy with this example.) I have written about killing fields before, during the aftermath of the Oslo and movie theater incidents, though. Just as that opinion stands on its own, I think I will just leave my original article on Islam vs. Western culture and law as I wrote it this week. It speaks for itself.

On another, and I think deeply related, matter, we have today revealed the vengeance of Speaker John Boehner. As expected, the figurative blood is flowing on Capitol Hill. Prime target of the newly re-elected Speaker is Congressman Daniel Webster of Florida and those who supported him. You already know, of course, that through bullying and threats, Boehner managed to barely squeak through in an historic challenge to his leadership. That is because he is not a leader, but a thug. And like all thugs, he is a coward. The victims of his wrath today are revealed as real men. These are people who, weighing the sure retribution if they failed, were willing to put their personal gain and careers on the line for their principles and for the country they love. These men should be our heroes. They paid a large price for their patriotism. They did in their own way what the likes of John Adams, John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin did in their era – they stood up to what they knew was wrong, was oppression, was a miscarriage of government and what was not in the interests of Americans and they took the chance. It was observed by Franklin at the time that “if we don't hang together we'll all hang separately”. He meant that – it was more than a mere witticism. Had the war been lost, or had any of these American patriot leaders been captured, they would have paid in blood for it.

But we're beyond all that bloodshed now, right? Now we have a gavel to do the job. Or rather a suit with a gavel. And that empty suit managed to lead all but 25 to follow the safe path to oblivion with him. These congressmen must be defeated in 2016. We must all work to see that happen. What they did yesterday was to rubber stamp the failed leadership of a man more concerned with seeing Obama's course to its final success – the ruin of America – than with charting a course to take us back to sanity, balance our budget, re-establish and close our borders, get rid of the hated Obamacare, bring government back to its proper proportions and stop the dictatorship that is destroying our constitutional government. Boehner can't say he lacks the support of the people. That is precisely what they ordered in the last election – it was a wave election to stop Obama. He can't say he hasn't the strength in Congress. He's had a majority since 2010. That's two terms ago. What, exactly, has he done with his majority? Can anyone tell us?

And when you here the whiners and excuse-makers point to the “fact” that Congress is “only ½ of 1/3 of the federal government, you know you have a Whining RINO before you. These whiners will always pull that one out of their back pocket. In fact it's one you'll hear loudly and often from Kevin Cramer. The TRUTH, however, is that this particular ½ of 1/3 is very powerful indeed. It even has the power to “shut down” government. Of course that means our parks and monuments and such, not our vital services and not payment on our debt. Those are exempt, including the Social Security Administration. But for those parks to stay open we are paying a very high price, Mr. Cramer, Mr. Boehner.

The way in which these two themes intersect is in the fear of fear. I am not an admirer of Franklin Roosevelt's politics or most of what he did or said, but he was right in one memorable and pithy comment as we entered WWII: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” So it is with the House Speaker. Just think – how many in Congress know full well that Boehner is incapable of using his majority for good purpose, that he will always pull Obama's chestnuts out of the fire and champion his policies in Congress even when the vast majority of the voters have said no. How many of these sitting Congressmen were elected to stop Obama? How many of them are intelligent enough to know you cannot stop him unless you stop Boehner, his right-hand man? Nearly all of them. So why didn't they take advantage of this opportunity to elect a new, effective, loyal Republican leader? Out of so many good candidates? To serve the people who trusted them and elected them to represent their districts? Why? Fear, of course. We have nothing to fear but fear itself. The Scots have a term for people like Boehner. Their bloody history of oppression has many of them, so they needed a name for them. An interim sort of king, John Balliol, was known as “Toom Tabbard” for his disloyalty to Scottish sovereignty and his cowardice. It just means “empty tabbard” or in our fashion era, “empty suit”. He was followed by Robert Bruce. (Let's hope something like this happens soon for us.)

So these cowardly congressmen thus ensured the continuance of the reign of terror which had them cowering, afraid to speak out. Terrified of a rollcall vote that would “out” them to the Speaker. Who knows what else they feared? Tom McClintock obviously has something in his closet, for he would have been in the forefront . . . until about a week ago. Suddenly, after years of contending for smaller government and flexing the muscles of Congress, he whimpers that we should “cut him [Boehner] some slack”. So we know that there are both positive and negative prods in the arsenal of Mr. Boehner. He can use sticks and carrots. He passes out chairmanships like Halloween candy or withholds them. He throws off of committees those who don't rubber stamp him and kiss his hand. He is the ultimate false leader. And how easy to have been rid of him, to end this reign of terror, to be free to honor the promises made to voters at home. They were only five votes short of a new era and a new chance for America. Who might those five have been? McClintock might have been one, Mia Love, the tea-party -dependent newby, might have been one. Louisiana's John Fleming might have been one. Kevin Cramer might have been one. Tom Emmer might have been one. In fact, it is fair to say now that Boehner's re-election was not inevitable. His re-election was sealed with each single vote cast for him. And it's no good for “conservatives” who voted to continue the status quo to rage about later when Boehner acts in character. It's too late for that. Now we have Congressman Harris of Maryland out there fuming that conservatives were called “fringe guys” by Boehner's aide. Where does he get off? He just showed the world he IS fringe. He doesn't mean what he says to voters at home – if he did he'd have made crucial Vote Number 25.

It is also fair to say that each of the congressmen who cast a vote for John Boehner yesterday will forever bear the guilt for the suffering of America under this false leadership, this leadership against the will of the people. One casualty yesterday was hope that the new Congress would make any difference. One gain from yesterday is a rollcall vote which gives patriots a road map and a checklist for 20016. There are exactly 24 Republicans who deserve to be re-electe to Congress. The rest had better be taken down. Even if this means – and in many if not most cases it will – electing a Democrat. Because when a Republican acts and votes like a Democrat we are in far worse trouble than if we must only fight Democrats. We have many traitors in our midst. We now know exactly who they are.

To the many concerned Americans who called their Congressmen and urged support of an alternative to Boehner, don't give up. Just take notes. Learn who is on our side and who is on the other side. And let's do this now, while the information and shock are fresh. Let's begin now to reshape the Republican Party before 2016. We already know Jeb Bush expects the nomination. It's his “turn”, don't you know? The Bush dynasty is a regular Downton Abbey of privilege here. We had this with the Kennedy family and we have it now. It's not the idea that no one with that name could contend, fair and square, for the job, it's the use of the concept of entitlement. As long as there are Bushes, apparently, everyone else is expected to stand aside. Maybe it's the “turn” of a Conservative.

And finally, I alluded to a couple of fairy tales. This was prompted by a comment of my son, who said that growing up there were really two stories that had made an impression on him - “The Emperor's New Clothes” wherein a little boy told the truth and finally cleared the fog away in the village (read it again for yourself, hat-tip to Mark Twain) and Frank L. Baum's “The Wizard of Oz”, where in the end, the whole illusion was being effected by a little man behind a curtain. It was all a fraud in both cases. My son has learned that in most cases skepticism is warranted. With the issue of the violence of Islam, why not keep it out of our country? Why perpetuate the lie, ala Emperor's New Clothes, that it is a “religion of peace”? When their own religious foundation, the Koran, tell its followers to smite infidels, to subjugate them, and when force is insufficient, to lie to them, but never to be their friends. Why can't we say it if they are saying it in their “holy” book? With regard to our cowards in Congress, why can't they “hang together” in opposition to Boehner? If he has any dirt on these people it can't be as damaging as their vote for him! They had nothing to fear but fear itself, but they feared it more than they honored our country and its history and the voters who sent them. What a shame. What a sad and unnecessary loss.